Editorial: Partisan Supreme Court justices a part of our time

What’s the difference between the U.S. Supreme Court and the other two branches of the federal government?

Sadly, not much at all.

We expect the members of Congress to be partisans. We want them to be so. They campaign for office as members of a political party, supporting specific positions that are part of an overarching governing philosophy. Same too with the president.

But the nine justices on the highest court in the land are supposed to be something apart, members of a very different breed. When a case comes before the Supreme Court, the judges, at least in theory, are supposed to look at the facts, at the Constitution, at precedent, at the law. They’ve got the final word, after all, and must not be just more of the same.

Today, though, the court has become something of an extension of the executive. The five so-called conservative justices were each appointed by Republican presidents, while their four liberal counterparts were named to the high court by Democratic chief executives. Before the current court began its term on Monday, however, you needed a scorecard to tell the players. You couldn’t guess what justices would be on which side of a given case simply by knowing the party of the president who had appointed them.

One example: Justice John Paul Stevens, the just-retired liberal stalwart, was nominated to the high court by President Gerald Ford. Earlier, he’d been named to a federal court of appeals by President Richard Nixon.

We’ll not likely see such a thing again. Today, everyone knows the dreary and predictable steps of the partisan dance. A president nominates someone who will surprise no one, the Senate confirms without incident, and the rule of law bows to the rules of partisanship.